Desk Booties

A few weeks ago I saw this on pinterest, and followed the link to Art with Mr. E's blog.  My classroom has lots of color in every direction, so I was able to use leftover material without trying to match a theme.  I had left over felt from making Christmas stockings for my family and fabric letter for my son and niece.  So I got out my mom's rotary cutter (that I really should return) and cut out a lot of squares that were 4 inches x 4 inches.

Today when I got started, I began wondering about my sanity before I finished the first desk.   But as soon as I turned the desk over and slid it to it's new home I knew I had to keep going.  This is not a difficult task, but I had a hard time centering the fabric for my liking on the first desk.  The next picture is my room.  I used grey,hot pink, bright blue and Christmas green.

Thanks again to Mr. E!  What a great idea!

Bulletin board border!

I am still loving my painted bulletin board from last year, but this year I am changing the borders and using ribbon! I found the cutest green & white paisley ribbon at Michael's for $4 or $5 per roll. I bought 4 rolls and needed two (with some left over, but not enough for a full length of the board.

I have not finished the corners because my school scissors are not great and need to take my fabric scissors up to school to have neat corners. I will try to add a close up of the ribbon soon!

New pencil caddy

I saw this cute idea on Sandy Toes & Popsicles, and immediately thought of my classroom.  For years I have been storing scissors, colored pencils, markers and rulers in shoe boxes.  For some reason students love to mark and write all over the boxes, and on more than one occasion I have been known to rip the lids off because I was so annoyed by it.  So a new idea is welcome.  

My biggest expense was a can opener that wouldn't leave a sharp edge ($20 @ Target).  I used the spray paint I had, plus a few new cans.  As a base I used an old shelf from an entertainment center.  3 edges are unfinished and I will be putting ribbon around the base to make the base look a little more finished.

Agenda Frames

Reorganization is a constant theme in my life. I loved having my agenda for the week on the board, so students could quickly tell what we were going to be doing. So several years ago I stole the idea from a fellow teacher/friend to make a calendar on my board using colored masking tape.

But each year I had issues putting it back up (time consuming if you are a touch OCD), and with the tape peeling more and more as I continue to clean the board. So I came up with another plan.

I wanted to get square picture frames from IKEA, but decided they would be too small, so I got giant ones! I put wrapping paper in them and tried to write the name of the class and days of the week - epic fail! It was too busy ... but I loved the wrapping paper. So I amended my plan.

I used white paper to write the name of the class and days of the week and put the wrapping paper behind it. The white paper was thin enough to mute the wrapping paper while allowing my writing to be read from across the room.

Next I used hot glue to glue some magnets to the back of the frames and stuck them to the dry erase board. But they fell ...so next I used super glue ... and they slid, but did not fall. So next, I added additional magnets - now it works. Am I stubborn? A little.

So now I write on the frames with my dry erase markers and I don't have tape peeling off my board. It didn't save me as much room as I was wanting, but three preps makes for lots of information to share! I need to switch out the white page for anatomy for a new white page for forensics this year.